


With Your Eyes Wide Open

by AuroraKant



Series: Whumptober2020 [22]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alfred Pennyworth Says Fuck, BAMF Dick Grayson, But Also... He Doesn't, Dick Grayson Needs a Hug, Dick Grayson Whump, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Dick Knows Bruce Cares For Him, Gags, Gen, Happy Ending, He Gets The Sleep At Least, Hurt Dick Grayson, Jason Todd is Robin, Non-Explicit Torture, Sleep Deprivation, This Takes Place When Dick and Bruce Are Still Fighting, and sleep, restrains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:09:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27162974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraKant/pseuds/AuroraKant
Summary: Just… he just needed one moment of shut eye. Nothing more, nothing less… just a moment with his eyes closed and then…. His thoughts were beginning to drift off… he could sleep. Just… some relaxation and he would sleep and dream and everything would be alright.The bucket of ice-cold water hit him like a sledgehammer.Or: Dick Grayson gets abducted because they want Bruce Wayne's money - how painful is it then that even if Bruce could, he wouldn't answer Dick's calls anyway.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober2020 [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948651
Comments: 45
Kudos: 489
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	With Your Eyes Wide Open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HuiLian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HuiLian/gifts).



> Hello and welcome to Whumptober Day 23!!!  
> WE ARE GOING STRONG AND FAR!!!  
> This is for Lian, who I hope will enjoy this piece of Dick Grayson whump! Baby Jason is a special treat! 
> 
> Comments, Kudos and Bookmarks give me life and keep me going!!! Thank you so much!! <3<3<3

Just… he just needed one moment of shut eye. Nothing more, nothing less… just a moment with his eyes closed and then…. His thoughts were beginning to drift off… he could sleep. Just… some relaxation and he would sleep and dream and everything would be alright.

The bucket of ice-cold water hit him like a sledgehammer.

His eyes flew open, the world around him bright and painful and loud. It didn’t take long for Dick to get his bearings back, his surroundings more than familiar at this point: An old warehouse on the waterfront in Blüdhaven, a dusty backroom with a chair Dick was tied to and always at least three guards to make sure he didn’t escape.

All in all, it could have been your typical Sunday, but for some reason these guys had decided to kidnap him while he was Officer Grayson. And Officer Grayson was many things – a somewhat horrible police officer who regularly messed up the corrupt cases of his precinct simply by being “naïve” for one – but he wasn’t an escape artist.

So, Dick had decided to wait them out when they brought him here yesterday. And he waited. _And he waited._

For what? For a chance to escape, maybe, or an interesting conversation partner.

But nothing happened. At least not for a long time. And then the big bad boss, a smuggler and drug dealer named Cole Makenzee, had realized, just what kind of cop his lackeys had found searching through piles of cocaine.

Why did Dick have to be kidnapped by the only intelligent drug boss of Blüdhaven?

Because now they were waiting for Bruce to call back. They were waiting for Bruce Fucking Wayne to pay the ransom for his ward Richard Grayson. But they didn’t know that, for one, Bruce wasn’t even on the planet right now - last Dick had heard he had some important interstellar case - and that even if they could reach him, he wouldn’t pick up if it was Dick’s number calling.

(the kidnappers were using his phone to reach out to Bruce – no success yet)

Bruce hadn’t answered the phone the last three times when it had just been Dick calling either. So, why would he start now, when Dick actually needed his help? Plus, there was outer space.

Dick blinked to free his lashes from the last droplets of water, suppressing the shudder that ran through his body. He was freezing and wet. Soon he would catch a cold, Dick was sure of it. His arms were tied securely behind his back, so he couldn’t even try to rub warmth back into his body.

The men in front of him were laughing, and Dick sent his most frightening glare in their direction. Jason liked to call it the mini-version of the Batglare, but Dick wasn’t really comfortable with comparing his habits to those of Bruce – what if they were actually similar? What if Dick was becoming like the man, he had done his best to get away from?

“Fuck you.” His teeth were chattering, but the bite was still audible in Dick’s voice.

For some reason it only made the men laugh harder. One of them, a big burly dude the others called Mike, crouched down in front of Dick, a patronizing smile on his face:

“The boss said, we should keep you awake. Awake and uncomfortable. For every six hours your old man doesn’t call back we are going to douse you in cold water – the rest of the time we might have to get creative ourselves.”

Nightwing would have grinned and said something along the lines of “well, that would imply that you are intelligent enough for creative thought” but Officer Dick was a civilian, even if he was trained and dressed in uniform. Officer Grayson could be angry, and scared, and a bitch – but he couldn’t be the calm and funny hero Nightwing.

“Let me go, you asshat! This will not work out for you!”

It wouldn’t, but Dick had the vague feeling that they weren’t inclined to believe him. How was he supposed to explain to them that Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne had a falling out because Dick had wanted to stretch his wings and Bruce turned more and more into an overbearing Mother-Hen? How could he explain that their fights had ended so badly, that Bruce never answered his phone when Dick called, and Dick only spoke to the Butler and his little brother?

People like them weren’t interested in his family history, or his personal relationships… they were interested in money, and Dick had none.

So, he got ready to wait.

Wait, until Alfred found Bruce’s phone in the desk drawer a horrid number of unanswered calls displayed on the small device, or until Amy filed him as missing after he missed his second, third, fourth shift in a row.

Sleep deprivation was a bastard method of torture – especially since you had to get creative with it at some point or another, the human body accepting worse and worse conditions in its desperate search for sleep.

Right now, Dick was brushing twenty-two hours without sleep, his small attempt at napping before the water hit him, the first sleep he would have gotten since he was kidnapped sixteen hours ago. Right now, Dick was just tired.

In a day or so he would desperately crave this feeling of stones gently dragging his limbs down, he was experiencing right now, or the fact that he was slightly irritated because he wanted to sleep– in a day Dick would begin to test the edges of what a normal person could endure when it came to sleep deprivation.

Dick could stay awake for fifty-two hours. He knew that – the field had tested him enough times – but he also knew that staying awake in a situation of crises was different from staying awake when the only thing you could do was sit and wait to be tortured.

For the next couple of hours Dick simply watched – he watched as the men carried on with their businesses, the room Dick was held in also functioning as their actual office. In the beginning he had quipped and bantered, but Mike had threatened him with a gag and Dick had wisely chosen to shut up.

Right at the top of his list of things that would make this worse were gags. He hated them. He found them humiliating. He felt weak and vulnerable when a bad guy forced one on him.

He rather stayed silent out of his own free will than to be forced into submission like that.

It was mind-numbing. Nothing important happened, and as much as Dick tried to focus on the whispered conversations between the men, he could feel the sleepiness return.

His eyes closed against his will, his thoughts drifting off, when a hand connected with his cheek, forcing his head to twist.

Almost immediately his eyes opened again, only to look into the grinning face of Mike Asshat:

“No sleeping on the job, little boy.”

Dick answered by sticking out his tongue. His cheek burned from the force of the hit and his eyes tingled with their desire for sleep, but he would stay strong.

It would be easier to stay strong if waiting wasn’t so incredibly boring.

He was awake the next time a bucket of cold water was emptied over his head, but that made the experience only insignificantly more bearable. The water stung in his eyes, and when the men had returned to their normal work, Dick sneezed a couple of times.

Yeah, he was definitely getting that cold he had prophesized.

Dick tried to keep himself occupied by giving the men names. The big boss himself hadn’t shown his face yet, but Dick was rather familiar with Mike Asshat at this point. There was a tall lanky dude Dick decided to call Mr. Bean and one with very big ears that Dick almost called Dumbo before deciding that the elephant of his childhood deserved better. Instead… Dick would call him Benedict.

The three of them worked on papers in the corner the furthest away from Dick, at least one of them always keeping watch so they could spot when his eyes began to drop. Right now, Dick had only allowed himself that weakness twice – soon there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

The next wave of ice-cold water hit him when he was blankly staring at the wall, his attention somewhere else entirely.

When Dick’s gaze focused on Mike, the man wasn’t smiling. Cole, the big bad boss, was standing behind him with a dark frown on his face:

“Why isn’t your old man picking up?”

“I told you” – his teeth were chattering badly – “that he doesn’t take my calls. Doesn’t like me much these days.”

“Bullshit!”

The fist connected with his face on the exact same spot than the slap from before. His jaw would be black and blue in a few hours, Dick could feel the bruises reach bone deep. It would hurt to talk and eat for a while – nothing Dick hadn’t lived through before, but it always sucked.

Cole Makanzee was smartly dressed, and his face promised nothing good when he leaned forward to whisper in Dick’s ear:

“I would hope for your own sake that daddy finds his phone soon, because I am about to get unpleasant.”

What was Dick supposed to do? He had no control over what Bruce was going to do – Heck! There was nothing Bruce could do! The man was on the other side of the galaxy! And yes, not even Bruce right now, with the both of them fighting more often than they managed to talk, would willingly let Dick suffer, he knew that… but that changed nothing when it came to picking up the phone.

Maybe that was why Dick let the desperation win, spitting Cole right in the eye. The man recoiled, Mike’s fist once more connecting with Dick’s face. He just hoped they didn’t break his jaw – he liked the form of it. His jawline was one of his best features.

Cole straightened up, something dangerous gleaming in his eyes, as he rubbed the spit from his face. He was addressing Mike when he spoke next:

“Before you change rotation, I want you to gag him – _disgusting_ – oh, and find me the waterproof earphones I have somewhere in here.”

“Fuck you!”

Dick wasn’t about to give up without a fight, the urge to escape so much stronger with the threat of a gag hanging above him. He could feel his restrains beginning to give, when Mike grabbed him by his throat and started squeezing.

Dick hadn’t counted on this. The air in his lungs wasn’t plenty enough to sustain him for long, his arms freeing themselves, only to desperately claw at the arm chocking him. They didn’t succeed. He hit and trashed and fought… but as the world around him dimmed, Dick opened his mouth involuntarily in a last attempt to find oxygen.

All he found was a balled-up sock, pressed deep inside his mouth, and tape being smothered over his mouth, so only his nose was free.

The hand around his neck fell away, but Dick was too busy sucking in fresh air through his nose, to care when rough hands pulled his arms back behind his back, tying him down once more.

All his struggle had rewarded him, was a soggy gag in his mouth, a new bruise encircling his throat, and a disrupted airflow. Only being able to breathe through his nose always felt a little bit like suffocating, even if the logical part of Dick’s brain knew, that that was not the case.

But with his heart exploding in his chest, and the adrenaline cursing through his veins, Dick didn’t care for logic. He cared for air.

Pitiful moaning sounds escaped him from behind the gag, but Cole only laughed:

“Oh, our Officer doesn’t like that? Let’s see what he says about my special musical treat.”

Mike came closer once more – and Dick hadn’t even realized that minutes must have passed since Mike had tied him down again – this time with a pair of burly headphones in his hands. Dick didn’t like were this was going, but Mike forced his head still as he pulled them over Dick’s ears, securing them in place with even more tape.

“I heard noise is a wonderful way to ensure that someone stays awake”

Cole’s voice was muffled through the noise-cancelling headphones, but Dick could guess what would happen next. And, yeah, before he could react or indicate his displeasure, a wave of sound assaulted his ears from both sides.

It was… Dick wouldn’t call it music.

It was pure noise.

It was loud and uneven and painful.

Dick tried to find a rhythm in it, something that would allow him to concentrate and focus, but whenever he thought he might have gotten used to it, the beat changed, or the sound dropped for a couple of moments.

It was impossible to focus on anything – but nevertheless Dick tried. His eyes searched the room in a frantic attempt to find something to center him. Something to protect him from this noise.

But all he could find was Mike and Cole and Mr. Bean and Benedict talking… and Dick not understanding what they said. 

It was pure torture.

The thoughts in his brain muddled, and as time passed – there were new people in the room – tiredness chased away the adrenaline. He was sick of it. He was tired, and his ears felt like they were bleeding and he was thirsty and hungry and achy…

He was a million things and the most he could do was shake his head in displeasure, trying to dislodge the headphones taped to his head. They wouldn’t budge, of course, they wouldn’t, but Dick was growing desperate.

He hadn’t seen Cole and Mike (or Mr. Bean and Benedict) in what felt like ages, and every moment of noise stretched for an eternity. The next bucket of water came to a complete surprise.

Dick gasped behind his gag, could feel himself swallowing parts of the sock in his shock. For a moment he couldn’t breathe at all, the cold and the gag making it impossible to draw in a breath. He started to cough. It was painful – his chest contracted, trying to forcefully expel whatever was blocking his airway, but Dick knew, that that wouldn’t work. The tape wouldn’t let it work.

The sock was secured with precision, and no matter how much his throat ached, there was nothing he could do to stop the pain from continuing.

It bothered him more that the noise had made it impossible for him to tell when the next wave of water would come – every part of him craved silence, craved the ability to access his situation more accurately. But the only sense he could still fully use, was his sight… and with each passing minute his eyes grew heavier despite the sound assaulting him.

If he had counted the buckets full of ice correctly, Dick was now pushing forty-six hours of being awake.

He felt like it.

Being awake was painful, there was a haze covering the world, and lights danced across his vision whenever he blinked.

He wasn’t confused just yet, but his brain was starting to struggle with processing the information his surroundings offered. Not that there was so much going on. The second crew of assholes watching over him was far less interesting, their bodies turned towards him, their gazes never doing anything but watch.

He wanted to sleep – and he wanted quiet.

His chest was still heaving, the skin on his arms and legs covered in goosebumps, when Dick made the mistake of resting his eyes.

He wasn’t even sleeping – _he couldn’t sleep!_ – but his eyes were dry and itchy, and Dick had thought that maybe… that maybe he could just close them for a moment and relax…

It took approximately two seconds for his guards to notice Dick’s truly nefarious plan. Their answer was to be expected, and yet Dick’s cheek stung as yet another fist connected with the ever-growing bruise. The gag in his mouth most certainly didn’t help.

His eyes flew open once more, and this time he forced them to stay that way.

Time must have passed, Dick knew that, even as everything slid out of focus, because the next bucket of water hit him, forcing him to return to the present. He wasn’t really sure where his brain had gone, but it wasn’t happy to be forced back into awareness.

He was sneezing, the sensation uncomfortable since he couldn’t breathe through his mouth while his nose was clogged. He was sneezing and freezing and… and… tired. God, Dick was so tired.

His entire body longed for a bed, or a hot bath, or both… just something warm and soft he could curl up in, enjoying soft and nice fabrics. The idea of sleep made his eyes drop, and even though Dick was sure that the last ice-bath had only happened minutes earlier, another bucket was emptied over him.

The room danced and swayed when Dick pried his eyes open, exhaustion trying to drag them back down.

Mike was standing in front of him.

Yay, Dick had almost missed him. _Almost_.

A jolt went through his body as sudden silence greeted him. Dick blinked. Mike was holding the headphones, Dick could have sworn had just seconds ago decorated his own head. Mike was holding the headphones and he was saying something, but the silence was so loud, Dick couldn’t understand the man through the ringing in his ears.

A muffled “what?” escaped him through the gag, but it was unrecognizable and weak.

Dick blinked. Hands were shaking him. Mike’s hands, and this time Dick even understood what the Asshat was saying, the sound distorted and wrong when it reached Dick’s ears. Were they bleeding? They felt as if they were bleeding.

“- you listening? Fuck, I asked if you were listening! Yes? Good! You better tell us how to get the money Boss wants or you are dead. He is getting pissed and you are dead as soon as his patience runs out. If you talk at least you have a chance of surviving.”

No, he hadn’t. If Dick talked, he would be killed as soon as the money appeared in their bank accounts. But it would probably be a quick death – a slit throat, or a bullet to the head. Not whatever this was… not this torture of sleepless nights and horrible sounds.

He made another pitiful noise from behind the gag, and Mike answered by ripping the tape keeping the sock inside his mouth from his face – it stung, but it was a pain Dick welcomed.

His throat ached when he moved his mouth, pushing the gag free with the power of his tongue. He was thirsty, painfully so.

“Wa- water…”

A cough ripped itself free, Dick’s lungs complaining about their mistreatment. He was soaking wet, and at some point, he had stopped shaking. Not good. Not good at all.

Mike didn’t look happy about Dick’s request, but he complied, maybe because he had a shred of human decency left, or because he had done the math and realized that Dick was almost at a point where he would die of dehydration.

The water felt like salvation, even as Dick stopped himself from drinking too much. Throwing up would make this even less fun, and Dick was already not enjoying himself.

“So, speak. And maybe I will let you sleep.”

“You won’t.”

“Test me”

Mike’s arms were crossed, and for a moment Dick toyed with the idea of standing up, and breaking the arms of his captor with the chair he was tied to… but then he blinked and opening his eyes was the most tedious thing he had ever done… and… no. He was too tired. He just wanted to sleep.

“There is no money… there is no money because Bruce Wayne and I are no longer on speaking terms and I gave my entire trust fund to charity…”

Dick was slurring his words, syllables dancing from his lips as if he were drunk. He felt a little bit drunk – but not the fun kind, but the hard-core depressive one.

“You are right. I won’t let you sleep.”

With that Mike grabbed Dick’s hair, pulling his head back and forcing the gag back inside his mouth. Dick barely struggled – he was too exhausted to do more than shake his head slightly. Tape got rapped around his head once more, and Dick didn’t even care.

In the time it had taken Mike to turn around and grab the tape, Dick had closed his eyes, sinking low into the confinements of unconsciousness. The darkness felt soothing when it touched his frayed nerves, and Dick allowed himself to relax, sleep greeting him like a warm hug.

Someone was hitting him.

Dick didn’t care.

There was noise and sound and… and

Sharp pain.

Dick’s eyes flew open as the electricity cursed through his veins. His body shook, only this time it wasn’t cold that sent tremors rippling down his body, but a cattle rod, running sparks over his skin.

In front of him Mike was grinning. Okay, Dick was officially no longer happy to see Mike, he wanted the nondescriptive goons from earlier back. And he did get them back, but with a sentence that did little to help him calm down:

“I have things to take care of… but shock him every twenty minutes. Or if he closes his eyes. Continue with the water as well. If Daddy really has no money left for the idiot, at least we can have some fun before his body shuts down.”

 _Fuck you!_ Dick wanted to yell, but the gag made even that impossible. Just a short _hmpf_ sound escaped him, nothing satisfactory in the way humiliation cursed through his veins.

Mike left, and Dick lost all sense of time.

Sleep never came, instead pain made his muscles spasm, and confusion colored his thoughts grey. He didn’t care for Bruce or Batman or Robin or his job… he just wanted to sleep. He wanted to be warm. His entire body was vibrating from the cold – at least Dick thought that was the reason why he couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

Everything was a bit hazy. A bit weird.

Whenever he blinked the world seemed to lurch to one side of the other, and whenever he swallowed fire ran down his throat.

It was… It was hell… this was what hell had to feel like. Dick hadn’t known that a human could feel this exhausted, this over the edge. He was a string of cotton, pulled taunt. A piece of fabric ready to break.

He just wanted to sleep.

Something wet was running down his cheeks and he wasn’t sure if it was the cold water or if it were his own tears, spilling from his eyes. He wasn’t cold anymore – Dick knew that wasn’t good, even as the why eluded him.

Maybe if he rested his eyes for a bit? But, no, as soon as he closed them, another wave of pain hit. Another blast of electricity kept him from the relief sleep would bring.

Dick was trying to stay awake, he really was, the cattle rod a rather good motivator, but his body was no longer able to comply. There was an end to human endurance, and it seemed as if Dick had reached that. He just… he just needed to sleep.

Something crashed through the door, and Dick was instantly forced in a more immediate form of awareness.

The… someone was moving quickly through the goons spread out in the room, Dick barely able to follow. It was a shadow of red and yellow and green. Hey, he knew those colors.

Dick had only blinked once, and the action was over. The big guns hadn’t been in the room. And Robin was more than capable of defeating a couple of criminals on his own. Maybe Dick could sleep now, his eyes drifting shut once more.

“Hey! Dickface! I need you to look at me!”

Someone was talking… Jason was talking.

Dick knew him.

With herculean effort, Dick looked at Jason, at Robin. The boy’s face was swimming in and out of focus, and before Dick could react, the tape got ripped from his face, the gag pulled from his mouth.

He could cry out of gratitude. Maybe he did, his face was too numb for him to know for sure.

“Hey… It is alright! The Big Man sent us. Agent A is waiting for us right behind the building! You just need to come with me!”

“I… I wanna sleep…”

Dick’s voice was barely more than a whisper, a husk of exhaustion getting lost in the tension leaving his body. Jason’s hands on his shoulders were firm. And warm.

“I know, big guy. And you can sleep soon! Really, really soon! Just a couple of steps and then you don’t have to leave a bed for twenty-four hours. Just… come on!”

Jason was pulling on him now, and Dick just… let go. His body fell against Jason’s, his head sinking against the R in the Robin costume. Maybe Robin would look over him – Robin had protected him his entire life after all.

But… but no matter how much he wanted to, Dick could no longer walk. He was too tired, his body pushed beyond what a human should endure.

“Don’t cry. It’s alright. Okay… I can find another way. Um… Robin to Agent A. Yes… Can you come and help me? Big Bird… Big Bird would rather appreciate it, I gather.”

Jason’s arms held Dick tight, hugging him, and finally… finally Dick could close his eyes without fear. He didn’t fight against the tides pulling him under, or the darkness claiming him as its child… he let himself sink down deep… sleep finally, finally taking him home.

The last thing he heard before his body was allowed to rest, was a familiar British voice:

“Oh my, they have done a deed on our poor boy. Help me, Robin. And welcome home, Master Richard. I will ready you a bed and draw you a bath as soon as we are back in base… Good job, Robin, these fuckers deserved what they got.”

A gasp, a delighted laugh, and then… nothing.

_Finally._


End file.
